The Ontario Sustainable Energy Association (OSEA) hosted it's first Community Power Conference on November 15-16 with international speakers, 450 conference delegates, and over 2,500 trade show attendees. The conference was chaired by Dr. David Suzuki, the well-known scientist, host of The Nature of Things, and author of many books including the recent The Big Picture: Reflections on Science, Humanity, and a Quickly Changing Planet.

“South Dakota and Minnesota have robust wind resources to harness, particularly in the area where the power plant was proposed.”
—Lisa Daniels, Windustry

Big Stone II was originally slated to be a cost-effective, clean-coal project to be up and running as early as 2011 near Milbank, South Dakota, supplying new energy for the Midwest and even to Eastern states. Now that the project has been cancelled, many are wondering what went wrong and what will replace the power capacity that it would have supplied to the CapX2020 transmission lines planned for Minnesota.

The U.S. Department of Treasury has allocated $2.2 billion in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs) for 805 recipients across the country. Funded by the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, these energy bonds help government agencies, public power providers, and cooperative electric companies obtain lower cost financing for clean energy development projects.

October 24, 2009 - Citizens, scientists and world leaders in 181 countries are taking to nearby streets, mountains, parks, and reefs today to demand strong action on climate change, in what will be the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history.

More than 5,000 rallies and creative demonstrations are taking place, all of them centered on the number 350, to draw attention to 350 parts per million (ppm), which an overwhelming number of scientists now insist is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) has just released the 2009 updates for its highly respected and influential rules and procedures for interconnecting and net metering distributed generation.

As the state of Minnesota seeks to generate 25 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2025, communities are finding both that they can be part of that solution and that solution can be part of the future of their community.

Transmission Lineman
photo: mnorri, some rights reserved

There are many hurdles for connecting renewable energy projects to the existing electric power grid. Transmission lines already operate near full capacity. Substations may not handle new interconnections. Regulatory processes span state and federal authorities, and interconnection standards vary from state to state. Plus, it's not clear how to best allocate costs for infrastructure improvements between utilities, energy developers, and rate-payers.

Washington DC — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced it will provide up to $750 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help accelerate the development of renewable energy generation projects. This funding will cover the cost of loan guarantees which could support as much as $4 to 8 billion in lending to eligible projects, and the Department will invite private sector participation to accelerate the financing of these renewable energy projects.